Chapter Five
“I KNEW I’D END up with a few clients from people I know, but word has spread like wildfire. Thanks.” Abbey accepted the glass of wine Pru offered. “I’ve got more people wanting to book sessions than I can manage in the temp space we have set up right now. People here are really into the idea of a spa.”
Balancing her own wine, Pru settled into one of the deck chairs opposite her friend. “I thought they might be.” The news both pleased and worried her. She’d invited Abbey to ply her trade on a whim, a means of testing the waters. But she hadn’t expected the idea to take off quite this fast.
“That’s your thinking face. What’s cooking in that brain of yours?” Abbey asked.
“I’ve been noodling over the idea of a day spa for a while. But I wanted time to gather some data on interest before I broached the subject with my sisters. A spa would necessitate renovations—an expansion or addition somehow. There’s—”
The back door opened, pulling Pru’s attention to the other end of the porch. She lost her train of thought as Flynn stepped out and grinned at her. Just that quick flash of his smile had her blood heating, and she had to fight not to grin foolishly back.
“Pru?” Abbey looked from her to Flynn.
Pru pokered up and prayed she wasn’t blushing. Did she have a blinking neon sign over her head? Having torrid affair with sexy Irishman. “There’s not room in the house for a full day spa without cannibalizing on guest space. Plus, I wouldn’t want to have clients constantly tromping through and disturbing anybody. I mean, not that people tromp at a spa, usually, but you know what I mean.”
“A day spa is it?” Flynn asked.
“Just brainstorming.” Pru made introductions. “Abbey, here, has more business than she knows what to do with, and we’re kinda straining at the seams regarding temporary space.”
“And what is it you do?” he asked.
“Well, facials and aromatherapy is what I’ve been doing. Back in Mississippi, where my regular job is, I do body scrubs, wraps, and body masks, among other things. It’s all about the pampering.”
“That sounds grand. And you’re thinking of introducing some of that here?”
“Eventually. I think the response Abbey’s gotten has proved there’s a local market, and certainly it’s something guests would appreciate. But Abbey’s only here temporarily, and we’ve only barely gotten the inn off the ground. We haven’t yet made it solidly into the black from our initial start-up costs, so I can’t hit my sisters up with the idea of investing more in an expansion without numbers to support it.”
Flynn angled his head. “What if you did something on a smaller scale? You’ve already got the room for your massages. Couldn’t you co-opt one of the guest rooms not being used? Temporarily transform it, while Abbey’s here, gather your numbers. Now that the wedding’s over, do you have any fully-booked weeks coming up?”
They didn’t. They were getting a steady trickle of reservations, particularly for weekends, but during the week, reservations were still sparse. Pru considered. “What would you need, Abbey?”
“For what I’m already doing, just a comfortable reclining chair.”
“What about the hydrotherapy and wraps and such?”
“Some of them require specialized equipment, but some could be managed with access to a bathroom with a tub and shower.”
“How much time do you think you could manage away from your grandfather?”
“A fair bit. Mostly Mom has him during the day. It’s evenings and nights I’m really helping out.”
“I’d need to think on it, but maybe we could come up with something we could offer early in the week—maybe Tuesday through Thursdays? That wouldn’t interfere with weekend room rentals and would give us a chance to turn over the room on Monday if someone was in it for the weekend. Day spa traffic could help offset costs when reservations are slow.” The possibilities turned over in Pru’s head. “Maggie will want concrete numbers. Some kind of temporary set up would allow us to test things and gauge interest for something more permanent. If I can prove to the rest of them that there’s a legitimate market, then we could justify hiring someone else to do the actual running of the inn, and I can get back to massage.”
“Well, I’m here for at least another month, so I’m game to try it out, if you are.”
Pru was more than game. “Work up a list of possible services you think we can pull off here without having to purchase a lot of special equipment, and give me some estimates of the time for a session and what you’d charge. We’ll see what we can hammer out that would benefit us both. And if you want to test out those products on some guinea pigs…we could maybe talk about sampler sizes that could be provided with the rooms or gift sets that could be sold.”
“That is definitely something to think about.” Abbey rose. “Thanks for the wine. I’m gonna be getting on. Gotta be getting dinner ready for Granddaddy. I’ll get that list together tonight and bring it by tomorrow. Flynn, it was nice to meet you.”
“And you as well.”
Behind his back Abbey made an exaggerated Oh my God! face and fanned herself. Pru hid a smile in her wine. As Abbey got into her car, Pru headed inside to figure out what they were having for supper themselves.
Flynn trailed behind. “Did you mean it, about running the inn?”
“Mean what?” She tugged open the door to the fridge and scanned the contents.
“Do you not like it, then?”
“I didn’t ever have designs of being an innkeeper, no. I don’t dislike it. And I don’t mind it, especially as it’s what’s allowing us to keep our home. But with all the wedding planning and such, the actual management of it has landed a lot more on my shoulders than I’d expected.”
When he reached up and began to knead at those shoulders, she moaned. As her mind veered off on far more interesting things he could be doing with his hands, she tried to keep her brain in the conversation. What were they talking about?
“It’s better when Kennedy is around. And she’ll be more help when she gets back, now that the wedding is over.”
“I’ve said I can help while she’s gone.”
That he’d offer so readily—again—caused a little flutter under her breast. But that didn’t make it right. He’d left that life because he didn’t like it. “Flynn, you’re—”
Before she could get out that he was a guest, he interrupted. “Kennedy would say I’m family, and family helps. Either way, we both know I’m more than just a guest.”
That more was both thrilling and terrifying. She’d wanted romance—a grand passion to file away for cold, lonely nights down the line—and Flynn was giving that to her in spades. But he also gave her friendship and far more understanding than she’d expected. It was the sort of behavior that tempted her to count on him, and Pru knew that way lay heartache. She was still searching for the right words to turn down his kind offer when Ari came in.
“I’m starved! What’s for dinner?”
Pru consciously relaxed the shoulders that had gone tense beneath Flynn’s hands. They weren’t doing anything wrong. “I haven’t figured that out just yet.”
“Do we have time for a game before?”
“Depends on the game, I guess. I’ll be mostly tied up with slicing, dicing, and chopping, probably.”
“Flynn can play with me.”
It was the sort of request she’d make of Xander. But Flynn wasn’t the indulgent big brother/uncle figure, who’d be around for a long-term relationship, and no doubt, board games with a middle schooler were not what he wanted to do with his limited time here. But how to get that across to Ari without making her feel like a nuisance?
“Sure, and I’d be happy to do that.” He said it with the same casual ease he’d offered to dive in and work.
Pru’s heart gave another dangerous flutter.
With one last squeeze of her shoulders, Flynn dropped his hands and moved toward the kitchen table. “What would you like to play?”
Ari grinned. “I’m gonna introduce you to Redneck Life.”
Pru stifled a laugh at the utterly confused expression on Flynn’s face. Oh, this would be good.
As Ari scampered toward the family room to grab the game, Pru whispered, “Thank you.”
He just smiled at her.
“Do you have any nieces or nephews or cousins?” She realized she knew nothing about his family, which felt odd considering the other intimacies they’d shared.
“I’m Irish. I’ve got armies of cousins. A couple of nephews from my sister. Murphy—he’d be the eldest—is nearly ten.”
“Is it just the one sister?” Pru asked, tugging open the freezer to check their options.
“Just the one. She’s a few years older than me and terrifyingly capable of everything.”
“Sounds like Maggie,” Ari said, coming back in with the box.
“I’d have said like Pru, too,” Flynn said.
“Oh, Pru’s totally capable, but she’s not scary with it.”
“Standing right here, y’all.” Finding a bag of shrimp, Pru decided on scampi and began hunting up the rest of the ingredients.
“It’s true, though. You’re all subtle and stuff,” Ari insisted.
“And brilliant with it,” Flynn added.
Pru wasn’t comfortable with the compliment. “I’d say that’s far more out of necessity than inclination.”
“Heroes always rise to the occasion.” With that pronouncement, Ari unfolded the game board and began to explain how to play. “It’s just like the original game of Life, except it’s the person who has the most teeth left who wins.”
“Teeth, is it? Sounds violent.”
Ari just grinned and continued spelling out the rules.
Heroes. Pru didn’t feel like anybody’s hero. She was just doing everything she could to keep her family together. Watching the two of them, heads bent toward each other at the kitchen table, it was far too easy to let the fantasy expand to include him here, like this. Part of a family. Which so wasn’t happening. That wasn’t part of their agreement, wasn’t what he was here for. Better to banish that thought for good before she started expecting things. She was in this for the now, not the future. She’d do well to remember that.
~*~
“My two o’clock is getting settled,” Pru said. “The answering machine is on in case anybody calls looking for a reservation. The two girls from Memphis are still out hiking. There’s a couple coming in from Milwaukee and a student from Nashville coming in for the weekend, but none of them are due until after four. Their rooms are already prepped, and I’ll be out before they get here, so you shouldn’t have to do anything while I’m tied up.”
Flynn set his guitar aside and crossed to her, skimming his hands from her shoulders down to take her hands in his. “I’ll be fine. I told you I’m here to help. It’d be nice if you’d let me.”
He’d learned long ago that getting a strong woman to accept help was often an uphill battle. They were so accustomed to doing everything for themselves that they usually had it all done before anybody else could lift a finger. It had taken him and Ari both to wrestle dish duty away from her the last couple of nights. Five days post-wedding and Flynn was still watching, looking for where he could do more to relieve her stress than taking her to bed. Not that he wasn’t enjoying every moment they could snatch for that noble pursuit, but he wanted to give her the break she deserved.
“I just want you to enjoy your time here and not feel like you’re working.”
“Mo mhuirnín, I’m enjoying myself just fine, and I wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t mean it.”
Her cheeks pinked. “Well, I’m glad to hear it.”
Not bothering to repress his grin, Flynn lifted both her hands to his lips for a quick kiss. “Will it disturb anyone if I take my guitar out on the porch? I’ve a mind to do some writing.”
“Not from the front, it won’t. Go ahead.” She jerked a thumb in the general direction of the treatment room. “I should…”
God, she was cute when she was flustered.
“I’ll see you when you’re done.”
Still grinning to himself, Flynn carried his guitar and a notebook out to the front of the house. He lowered down to the top step, leaning against one of the porch posts and letting the scrap of melody that had been turning over and over in his head since his arrival begin to unfurl. His fingers stroked over the strings, coaxing the slow, faintly melancholy notes. His hero—for the song would tell a story, whether he added lyrics or not—was rolling along his path, embracing the known, the familiar, the norm. Comfortable, but with a niggle that something was missing. Until he came across something unexpected. A woman. It was always a woman. The notes shifted to warm and sweet, curious. A delightful surprise. The song, then, would be a tale of what came after.
“Whatcha working on?”
“I’m writing a song.” Flynn continued to strum absently, as he shifted his attention to Ari. “Kennedy tells me you’re quite the musician.” He’d not had opportunity to hear her play yet, but the term prodigy had been bandied about with regularity.
Ari jerked her thin shoulders in a shrug as she sank down on the step opposite him. “I like piano.”
“I can tinker enough on a piano to get by, but it’s mostly strings for me—fiddle and guitar. And occasionally drums. Harmonica if nothing else is available.”
“I wouldn’t have pegged you for a drummer.” She angled her head, as if she were trying to picture it.
“Not that kind of drums. The bodhran. It’s a traditional Irish instrument. You usually play it with your hands.”
“Sounds like you play a little bit of everything.”
“To be sure. But fiddle’s my first and last love for instruments.”
“Did Kennedy really tour with you?”
Flynn smiled, remembering. “She really did. The voice of an angel, has Kennedy. Those were some of the best months of my life.” And had led to one of his greatest friendships. Just what would Kennedy say if she knew he was sleeping with her sister? Nothing good, he could imagine.
“Why did she stop? Seems like it would be a lot of fun.”
“It was. Is, for me. But a life on the road wasn’t for her in the long-term. She always had her eye on coming back here, whether she’d admit it or not.”
“She said you’re a modern gypsy.”
It was a term he’d applied to himself often enough over the years, but somehow it didn’t sit quite so easily as it had before. He didn’t feel so free-wheeling and unfettered as he once had. And that was ridiculous. What was he if not what he’d always been? “I suppose I am. I’ve seen much of the world through my music, and that’s a grand thing.”
Ari tipped her head in concession of the point. “But don’t you get tired of it? Being on the road all the time? Not really having a home?”
There were a dozen flippant responses he could have made, but he answered honestly. “I never tire of it exactly. But I’m always looking for something.” Like the hero in his melody.
“What?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t found it yet.” Even as he said it, a part of him was back in bed with Pru, in the quiet moments after loving her. The world over, he’d never felt anything like the comfort he felt with her in his arms. But that wasn’t a thing he was about to share with her teenaged daughter. Shaking the thought away, he grinned. “Either way, I do come to roost from time to time, to write.”
“You’re roosting here.”
Ignoring the seriousness of her expression, he nodded, “I am. And it’s a grand place to do it.”
“Will you stay a while longer, after Kennedy gets back?”
“I expect so. I came all this way to see her. Seems a shame to leave without getting to spend some more time with her. Besides, I need a rematch in Redneck Life.” Ari had trounced him. By the end of the game, he’d been left with two teeth and more debt than should have been possible. Not to mention the sixteen red-headed stepchildren, all named Daryl.
She snorted with laugher. “Oh, I definitely want the chance to hear you try the hog calling contest again.”
“Who knew Pru would be the hands-down winner of that one?” She’d claimed to be doing an impression of the most obnoxious Arkansas Razorbacks fan she’d ever heard. Flynn couldn’t quite fathom what that would sound like in a stadium with thousands of people.
“Pru is awesome.”
“She is,” he agreed.
“You like her.” Ari posed it as a statement, not a question.
Flynn couldn’t tell if there was accusation or disapproval in her tone, but there was no sense in denying what the girl had eyes in her head to see. “I do.”
“It’s not like how you feel about Kennedy.”
Oh boy. This kid was too astute for her own good. What was he supposed to say? For all intents and purposes, Pru was her mother. In the end, he went with the truth. “No, not like Kennedy.”
Before he could figure out whether he ought to pursue the issue to suss out if Ari had a problem with that, a car pulled into the drive.
“Anybody you know?” Flynn asked.
“Nope. Maybe it’s one of the new reservations.”
“If it is, they’re early.”
The sedan rolled to a stop in front of the steps and the driver, a middle-aged man with graying sideburns and a neat goatee stepped out, followed by a woman Flynn assumed was his wife.
“Good day to you,” Flynn called. “Welcome to the Misfit Inn.”
“Oh honey, he’s Irish!” the woman exclaimed.
“So I can hear.”
Flynn broadened his smile. “Would you be the couple from Milwaukee, then?”
“What?” For a moment, the gentleman looked baffled. “Oh, no. But we are here looking to book a room. A woman at the diner in town recommended the place. Do you have any vacancies?”
“Sure, and I think we can manage that. For how many nights?”
“Through Sunday, if possible.”
Flynn knew without looking there was space. But were the other rooms all ready? “Check in’s not normally until after three, but come on inside. You’ll rest a bit, while we get things sorted. If you’ll just take your car around the corner to the lot there.”
“Excellent!”
As soon as the man and his companion slid back into their car, Flynn turned to Ari. “Where can we put them? Are the other rooms ready?”
“Beds are made. I just need to run towels up and set out the toiletries. I’ll check the book.”
“What information do we need from them?”
“Copy of driver’s license and a credit card number. But I don’t know how to run the payment program,” Ari admitted.
“We’ll figure it out. Run up and pick a room, while I get them settled in the lounge with…something to eat.”
She scampered off, and Flynn tried to remember what he’d seen in the cupboards for snacks. As soon as the couple came up the stairs, he ushered them inside and straight to the guest lounge. “I’m Flynn Bohannon. And you’d be?”
“I’m Kenneth Talbot. And this is my wife, Michelle.”
“And where would you be from, then?”
“Los Angeles.”
Flynn gestured for them to take a seat. “That’s grand. One of Pru’s sisters lives out that way. Would you be here for business or pleasure?”
“A little of both. Mostly pleasure,” Kenneth explained.
“Sure, and we can help with that. Can I offer you some coffee? Tea?”
“Coffee would be lovely,” Michelle said.
“Sort yourselves out there. I’ll be back in the shake of a lamb’s tail.”
Flynn hurried to the kitchen to start the coffee. When he opened the freezer for the beans, he spied the rolls of frozen cookie dough, neatly labeled with baking instructions. God love the woman. He pulled out a roll of chocolate chip, switched on the oven to the requisite temperature, and unearthed a baking sheet. Thinking freshly baked cookies would be good for the other guests, whenever they arrived, he went ahead and sliced an entire roll and popped them into the oven, before getting started on the coffee. He was searching out mugs and plates to make up a tray, when Ari came trotting down the back stairs.
“Oh, cookies. Great idea.”
“Is the room all set?”
“I’m sticking them in the Dogwood Room. I checked the book. Nobody’s in there this week.”
“Wonderful. Do you want to take them a clipboard with the registration paperwork, while I finish this up?”
“On it!”
By the time he carried the tray in with a plateful of warm, gooey cookies, Ari was chatting cheerfully with the couple.
“Mr. Talbot works in Hollywood!” she declared.
“That’s brilliant. Are you researching a film, then?”
“Doing some prospective location scouting,” Kenneth said.
“Are those fresh cookies?” Michelle asked.
“They are, indeed. Please, help yourself.”
They were still chatting half an hour later, when Pru stepped into the room. “What’s all this?”
Flynn made introductions. “They’re all the way from California, here through the weekend.”
“We put them in the Dogwood Room,” Ari added.
“Your husband and daughter have been plying us with cookies and coffee,” Michelle added. “You have such a lovely place here.”
Husband and daughter. Shock rippled through Flynn, along with some sweeter emotion as he looked from Ari to Pru. He supposed they did look like a family. It made for a far more appealing idea than he’d have imagined.
Pru seemed to likewise be struggling for what to say. Ari, however, seemed to have no problem leaping into the fray. “It’s a pretty awesome place to grow up. Did you always live in Los Angeles?”
“Will you excuse us for a moment?” Pru asked.
Flynn rose as she angled her head toward the hall. They continued on into the office.
“Husband?” she asked.
He lifted his hands in truce. “I didn’t say a word. They assumed.”
Pru seemed more flummoxed than angry about it. “Would it be weird to correct them now?”
“Probably. What does it matter? They’re only here for a few days. They don’t live here.” And why the hell was he reluctant for her to make that correction? He wasn’t husband material.
“I suppose not. I should get their details for the reservation.”
“Already gotten. The paperwork’s there on the desk. You just need to run the credit card. The room’s ready.”
“Why didn’t you come get me?”
“Why should we interrupt someone’s massage for a walk-in, when Ari and I could handle it?”
Pru gave him a long look before studying the paperwork, to make sure everything was in order. Then she set it aside and wrapped her arms around him. “Thank you.”
Flynn pulled her in tight and pressed a kiss to her brow. “I told you, I want to help.”
“So you did.” She looked again at the reservation paperwork. “I guess I’m going to let you.”